


Ashes

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 05:45:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4467611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on tumblr. Kise tries not to get burned again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> for uneplumesombre on tumblr; thank you for the prompt & hope you enjoy!

Ryouta always knows when he’s being followed. Of course, some of the time that’s the point; some of the time he’s meant to know, to keep on his toes and waste all his energy in paranoia before he gets home and still hasn’t been jumped, been taken on by two or three or four guys from another gang. But the joke’s on them; they’re the ones who are wasting their time on a futile effort because Ryouta is never all that worried. Even if this is one of the days where they’re going to try him, he’s ready, and if not then all the better (there’s no getting his hands dirty with blood, no risk of tearing up his school uniform on the pavement or scraping the skin off his palms). And he’s always on alert, even when he’s not being followed, just because it pays to do so, at least in Ryouta’s estimations.

It’s different when it’s Shougo who’s following him, though. Because with Shougo it’s like a game, a game with a tipping point that much be reached, almost a foregone conclusion (only it’s far from the end of the game, or even this part of it). Because Shougo never lets him get all the way home without pulling on his arm or sidling up to him, never really jumping him in any sense of the word—well not until later, if every definition is included.

Like today, when Ryouta can sense him before he can see him, can smell the distinctive tang of the cigarettes he smokes before he can see him, can feel his arm around his shoulder before he can see him. And when he does look, Shougo’s grinning like a lazy fox (or rather, Shougo’s approximation of it, still an affectation on top of whatever he is or might be underneath that) with the cigarette stuck between his two fingers like it had been the first time they’d met.

That day had been just shit on top of shit. Ryouta had gotten caught cutting class and couldn’t charm his way out of detention and had had to sit in a classroom while the gang was up to the usual activities (and that had been when he was new, too) and the weather was windy and cold, the kind of cold that bites faces until they’re red and numb and it was dark by the time detention ended and half the street lights on Ryouta’s way home had been shot out of working order.

And then Shougo had arrived, calling him insulting little names about being in a gang and Ryouta had tried to get a word in edgewise to tell him that he sounded an awful lot like a delinquent himself, and not a very tough one—but then Shougo had finished yammering on and clocked him in the jaw and called him a pretty boy and Ryouta had taken a few swings back and had managed to land far fewer hits than Shougo (but considering he’d only started fighting the previous week, it wasn’t as bad as it could be) and then Shougo had pushed him against the ground and taken the lit remainder of his cigarette and pressed it to Ryouta’s jaw, right under his ear. Ryouta didn’t scream but he struggled against Shougo, against the burn and the rising pain until he’d managed to throw Shougo off of him and send the cigarette skidding into the gutter and down the drain and it was then that Shougo had run off.

Ryouta doesn’t quite remember how that led to them eventually making out in a back alley, only that he’d told the guys and they’d said not to bother with Haizaki Shougo because he wasn’t really in a gang anymore; he’d been halfway kicked out of the one he’d been in and he was just a loser who caused unnecessary trouble (but it was totally fine to kick his ass if Ryouta met him another time). But somehow things had progressed to the way they are now, Shougo’s tongue down Ryouta’s throat and Ryouta inhaling the poison from his lungs, Shougo’s hand up at Ryouta’s ears and fingering the smooth scar below that still hasn’t completely faded (and Ryouta’s growing his hair out to hide it because he will not show the mark that someone like Shougo has left on him if he can help it, and in this case he can).

Somehow he doesn’t mind that Shougo’s lower lip is busted, that his wrist is twitching because he’d gotten another slash of the knife through his old gang tatoo that’s already been crossed and slashed with linear scars, his cheap and misguided way of erasing things that only serves to muddle everything up and keep the questions surfacing in Ryouta’s mind—why did Shougo get kicked out? What was that symbol to begin with and to which gang did it belong? He’s not sure what kind of lead it is when Shougo sees Ryouta’s tattoo and scowls, tries not to touch it as if that’s going to burn him in retaliation, because that could mean so many things.

So Ryouta just kisses him again, hard enough to make him forget about gangs and his nicotine cravings and whatever the things are in this world that make him so unhappy, unhappy enough to have his attitude and to stray from the normal, boring path that seems to satisfy so many people—it’s not enough for Ryouta, and that’s why he’s here chasing something else, some kind of blood trophy, and as much as Shougo wants to make it seem like that’s his motivation, too, it obviously isn’t. And maybe Ryouta’s starting to care a little too much and maybe he reaches up to finger the scar on his jaw a few times too many and maybe the more he finds out about Shougo the more he’ll find out about himself and maybe he’ll find some things he doesn’t want to face, but he chose this path. And he’ll worry about the consequences later because right now he’s got Shougo right here in front of him and his grey eyes are blazing like burning ashes from the end of a cigarette.


End file.
